uck up the water, and grew confused; and
feeling all at once that I was regularly exhausted, I turned over on my
back to float.

It was an unlucky movement, for I did it hastily and with the
consequence that my head went under. I inhaled a quantity of the
stinging briny salt water, and raising my head as I choked and
sputtered, I turned back again, struck out two or three times, and then
began to beat the surface frantically like a dog which has been thrown
into the water for the first time.

I can remember no more of what occurred during the next few minutes,
only that I was staring up at the sky through dazzling water-drops; then
that all was dark, and then light again, and not light as it was before.
Then it was once more dark, and then I was sitting in a boat half
blind, shivering, and helpless, with the boat rocking about
tremendously, and Bob Chowne over the side holding on to the gunwale
with one hand, to my wrist with the other.

It all seemed very wild and strange; but my senses were coming back
fast, and in an indistinct manner I saw someone swimming and plashing
the water about twenty yards from the boat. It was a man in a blue
woollen shirt, and his head was bald and shining in the sun, as I saw it
for a moment, and then, whoever it was, reared himself high as he could
in the water, and then struck off and swam away from us out to sea.

He did not go far, but stopped suddenly and shouted to us; and as he did
so, I saw a gleam of something white, and then that he was holding
someone's face above water.

Devon Boys--by George Manville Fenn

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

JUST IN TIME.

"Ahoy, lad!" he shouted. "Shove a scull over the stern, and scull her
this way."

This roused me, and I jumped up to seize a scull, but felt giddy and
nearly fell, for Bob Chowne had hold of my wrist.

"Take hold of the gunwale, Bob," I panted, as I tried again, and this
time felt better, getting an oar over behind, and sending the boat
along, as I had learned to years before.

It was slow and awkward work, with Bob hanging on to the side with his
eyes fixed, and his face white; but I got her along, and before I had
been sculling many minutes, a great brown hand was thrown over on the
opposite side to where Bob clung, and Jonas Uggleston said hoarsely:

"Lay in your oar, mate, and lean over, and take hold of Bigley here.
Get your arm well under him. That's right. Keep his head out of the
water. I'm about beat for a